On 7 October, GWP Chair Howard Bamsey was the keynote speaker in the second of a series of webinars organized by the Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF) on the road towards the 4th Asia-Pacific Water Summit in 2022. He spoke to the topic of "Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Investors: More Risks, More Opportunities through better Governance." His speech focused on how the world can deal with the potentially catastrophic risks of climate change by changing the pattern of investment in the global economy, towards climate-friendly activities.
The Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) has joined the entire Global Water Partnership (GWP) network and partner organisations in launching the Water ChangeMaker Awards.
The Niger Basin Authority (NBA) organized from 13 to 15 April 2021 a regional workshop to set up a functional platform for the W transboundary biosphere reserve as part of its support to promote and implement an ecosystem-based approach and IWRM practices through better coordination of interventions related to the complex between the three riparian countries, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. The event was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Paraguay recently concluded a successful consultation workshop on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 6.5.1: Degree of Implementation of Integrated Management of Water Resources (IWRM). Paraguay is one of the countries that accepted support by GWP South America to carry out consultations on SDG 6.5.1. The first round of consultations started in 2016, and in Paraguay in 2017. Paraguay's 2020 consultation is one of many taking place worldwide to collect data and measure the progress made on IWRM.
Using the key IWRM challenges identified in Stage 1, the aim of this stage is to facilitate a government-led multi-stakeholder process to formulate and prioritise appropriate responses to those challenges. The result of Stage 2 is typically an IWRM Action Plan (the name might be adapted for each country), which includes a series of attractive investment opportunities to systematically guide the implementation of solutions to IWRM challenges.
The Water-Employment-Migration (WEM) Lab II (19-20 November 2019, Istanbul), brought together representatives of key institutions (including on migration and labour), governments and stakeholders including the private sector civil society and academia, to identify related challenges, possible solutions and synergies among a range of partners. The focus was on addressing key lines towards building the WEM Framework Programme of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) Water Agenda, building on contributions by on-going and future actions and projects.
Hurricane relief efforts are underway in Abaco and Grand Bahama. Search and recovery efforts continue, as you have probably seen or heard in the news. Shortly, our Partner, the Water and Sewerage Corporation (WSC) of The Bahamas, will start rebuilding the water and sewerage infrastructure.
Desertification, along with climate change and the loss of biodiversity, were identified as the greatest challenges to sustainable development during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is observed every year on 17 May to promote public awareness of international efforts to combat desertification.
In 2020 with the onset of the global COVID-19 Pandemic, the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) was motivated to find a novel and creative way of educating Caribbean kids about the critical value of water, the various water issues that occur throughout the Caribbean region and how they could be empowered to become Water ChangeMakers.
